Nine Polish nationals charged with 'modern slavery' and trafficking more than 80 people
Group face offences including controlling bank accounts and the stealing wages of the people they smuggled.
Nine Polish nationals have appeared in court charged with modern slavery offences involving the trafficking of more than 80 people.
Six men and three women appeared at Birmingham Magistrates Court at the beginning of the week, facing offences that include controlling bank accounts and stealing wages after trafficking scores of people from Poland since 2014.
The case is the result of a West Midlands Police investigation into human trafficking.
All nine have been charged with conspiracy to force people into labour, conspiracy to traffic people with a view to exploitation and conspiracy to acquire criminal property.
Those charged are:
- Justyna Parcewska, 47, from West Bromwich, originally from Wloclawek in Poland
- Marek Brzezinski, 48, from Lindley Avenue in Tipton
- Dawid Kasperowicz, 27, from West Bromwich, originally from Opoczno in Poland
- Natalia Zmuda, 27, from Walsall, originally from Debca in Poland
- Julianna Chodakiewicz, 22, from Evesham, originally from Grueziadz in Poland
- Marek Chowaniec, 29, from Walsall, originally from Warsaw
- Jan Sadowski, 26, from Dartmouth street in West Bromwich
- Ignacy Brzezinski, 52 from West Bromwich, originally from Chelmno-Pomorskie in Poland
- Wojciech Nowakowski, 41, from Winson Green, originally from Bydgoszcz in Poland
All nine will be held on remand in prison ahead of their next appearance at Birmingham Crown Court, scheduled for 5 December.
Last month, a man who kept two Polish immigrants locked in his loft, paying them in cigarettes and alcohol, was jailed for three years and four months at Nottingham Crown Court.
Edward Zielinski, of Nottingham, admitted two counts of modern slavery between 31 May 2013 and 1 June 2017.
The court heard how the father of two forced the vulnerable men forced to work 20-hours-a-day, making greeting cards or other menial work he got for them from employment centres.
Zielinski, 42, controlled them through violence, beating them with planks of wood and taking away their passports.
Sentencing, Judge Gregory Dickinson QC said Zielinski had treated his victims in a "thoroughly degrading way".
